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    You Never Know Your Luck; being the story of a matrimonial deserter. Volume 2.
    You Never Know Your Luck; being the story of a matrimonial deserter. Volume 2.
    You Never Know Your Luck; being the story of a matrimonial deserter. Volume 2.
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    You Never Know Your Luck; being the story of a matrimonial deserter. Volume 2.

    By Gilbert Parker

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    You Never Know Your Luck; being the story of a matrimonial deserter. Volume 2.
    Author

    Gilbert Parker

    Gilbert Parker (1862–1932), also credited as Sir Horatio Gilbert George Parker, 1st Baronet, was a Canadian novelist and British politician. His initial career was in education, working in various schools as a teacher and lecturer. He then traveled abroad to Australia where he became an editor at the Sydney Morning Herald. He expanded his writing to include long-form works such as romance fiction. Some of his most notable titles include Pierre and his People (1892), The Seats of the Mighty and The Battle of the Strong.

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      You Never Know Your Luck; being the story of a matrimonial deserter. Volume 2. - Gilbert Parker

      The Project Gutenberg EBook You Never Know Your Luck, Parker, V2 #113 in our series by Gilbert Parker

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      Title: You Never Know Your Luck, Volume 2.

      Author: Gilbert Parker

      Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6286] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on December 5, 2002]

      Edition: 10

      Language: English

      *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK, V2***

      This eBook was produced by David Widger

      YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK

      [BEING THE STORY OF A MATRIMONIAL DESERTER]

      By Gilbert Parker

      Volume 2.

      VI. HERE ENDETH THE FIRST LESSON VII. A WOMAN'S WAY TO KNOWLEDGE VIII. ALL ABOUT AN UNOPENED LETTER IX. NIGHT SHADE AND MORNING GLORY X. S. O. S. XI. IN THE CAMP OF THE DESERTER

      CHAPTER VI

      HERE ENDETH THE FIRST LESSON

      The stillness of a summer's day in Prairie Land has all the characteristics of music. That is not so paradoxical as it seems. The effect of some music is to produce a divine quiescence of the senses, a suspension of motion and aggressive life; to reduce existence to mere pulsation. It was this kind of feeling which pervaded that region of sentient being when Shiel Crozier told his story. The sounds that sprinkled the general stillness were in themselves sleepy notes of the pervasive music of somnolent nature—the sough of the pine at the door, the murmur of insect life, the low, thudding beat of the steam-thresher out of sight hard by, the purring of the cat in the arms of Kitty Tynan as, with fascinated eyes, she listened to a man tell the tale of a life as distant from that which she lived as she was from Eve.

      She felt more awed than curious as the tale went on; it even seemed to her she was listening to a theme beyond her sphere, like some shameless eavesdropper at the curtains of a secret ceremonial. Once or twice she looked at her mother and at the Young Doctor, as though to reassure herself that she was not a vulgar intruder. It was far more impressive to her, and to the Young Doctor too, than the scene at the Logan Trial when a man was sentenced to death. It was strangely magnetic, this tale of a man's existence; and the clock which sounded so loud on the mantelpiece, as it mechanically ticked off the time, seemed only part of some mysterious machinery of life. Once a dove swept down upon the window-sill, and, peering in, filled one of the pauses in the recital with its deep contralto note, and then fled like a small blue cloud into the wide and—as it seemed—everlasting peace beyond the doorway.

      There was nothing at all between themselves and the far sky-line save little clumps of trees here and there, little clusters of buildings and houses—no visible animal life. Everything conspired to give a dignity in keeping with the drama of failure being unfolded in the commonplace home of the widow Tynan. Yet the home too had its dignity. The engineer father had had tastes, and he had insisted on plain, unfigured curtains and wallpaper and carpets, when carpets were used; and though his wife had at first protested against the unfigured carpets as more difficult to keep clean and as showing the dirt too easily, she had come to like the one-colour scheme, and in that respect her home had an individuality rare in her surroundings.

      That was why Kitty Tynan had always a good background; for what her bright colouring would have been in the midst of gaudy, cheap chintzes and Axminsters, such as abounded in Askatoon, is better left to the imagination. It was not, therefore, in sordid, mean, or incongruous surroundings that Crozier told his tale; as would no doubt have been arranged by a dramatist, if he had had the making and the setting of the story; and if it were not a true tale told just as it happened.

      Perhaps the tale was the more impressive because of Crozier's deep baritone voice, capable, as it was, of much modulation, yet, except when. he was excited, having a slight monotone like the note of a violin with the mute upon the strings.

      This was his tale:

      "Well, to begin with, I was born at Castlegarry, in Kerry—you know the

      main facts from what I said in court. As a boy I wasn't so bad a sort.

      I had one peculiarity. I always wanted 'to have something on,' as John

      Sibley would say. No matter what it was, I must have something on it.

      And I was very lucky—worse luck!"

      They all laughed at the bull. I feel at home at once, murmured the Young Doctor, for he had come from near Enniskillen years agone, and there is not so much difference between Enniskillen and Kerry when it comes to Irish bulls.

      Worse luck, it was, continued Crozier, "because it made me confident of always winning. It's hard to say how early I began to believe I could see things that were going to happen. By the hour I used to shake the dice on the billiard-table at Castlegarry, trying to see with my eyes shut the numbers about to come up. Of course now and then I saw the right numbers; and it deepened the conviction that if I cultivated the gift I'd be able to be right nearly every time. When I went to a horse- race I used to fasten my mind on the signal, and tried to see beforehand the number of the winner. Again sometimes I was very right indeed, and that deepened my confidence in myself. I was always at it. I'd try and guess—try and see—the number of

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